Indo-Chinese and Malayan tigers

[GuateGojira]

Body size of the Indochinese tiger - scientific records:

For long time I was trying to create a final table summarizing all that available information on the size of the modern tiger. To be honest I had done it, but a tragedy happen and I lost all the information gathered for 5 years! Sadly, I also lost my format to make comparison images, and now I am collecting all the information, again, since the beginning and is not an easy task.

 

However, I received a gift that I did not expected a few weeks ago, but let me tell you the story. A fear ago, I was traveling through the web and I found this document: “Female tiger Panthera tigris home range size and prey abundance: important metrics for management” from 2014. This document made by Achara Simcharoen and a big team of scientists working in Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand, present a series of information regarding the 4 males and 7 females radio-collared during they study (some were recaptured). Table 1 summarize the information of the specimens. Sadly there is no information about size and weight, so I needed to continue my search.

 

Years ago I found a webpage of Thailand tigers, I remember that the name was “Thailand Tiger Project”, or something like that, and I saw a picture of a big tiger that according with the article weighed 200 kg. Sadly I did not saved a screenshot or anything, just the link and by 2016 the webpage no longer existed, so the record was lost. Even then, I found a presentation from the Thailand government and for some time this image was all I have for that particular record:

*This image is copyright of its original author

 

Yes I know that it was not much, but I am sure of what I saw, so I kept that record and quoted it many times.

 

Now a few weeks ago I was searching to reconstruct my database when I found a document wrote in Thailand language and the name is: “Home Range Size of The Tiger in Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, Uthai Thani Province”. It was made by Dr Achara Simcharoen in the same area of Thailand and published in 2012. Of course I have no idea of how to read this language but happily Google translator worked correctly this time and I found this jewel in table 1:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Now check it translated:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Ohhh yes, this is the first table that show that body size and weights of the only Indochinese tigers reported by scientists, for the moment. Now, are this real measurements or estimations, well, here are two good pictures:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

So yes, tigers were measured and weights. Of course, I know that there is a pair of people in another forum that will try to discredit all the information about tigers, so before to publish it here, I made my personal investigation, and of course I found the answers. We have lengths and weights, so we need to know how the tigers were measured and if the weight includes stomach content. I wrote to Dr Achara Simcharoen, the author of the previous documents and she was very kind to clarify my “important/annoying” questions. So here we go:

 

1. Body length:

As we know modern scientist measure they cats “along the contour” and follow a “standard” protocol, like Dr Karanth says, however we know that there is no such thing as “standard” trought the countries as any scientist measure they study animals in different ways. We have many methods like keeping the tape straight like measuring between pegs (Dr Mel Sunquist), or leaving the tape somewhat loose but not pressing it (Dr Vidya Athreya), or pressing the tape in the undulations (Mohammad Farhadinia), and this is just the mention a few. I don´t quote the supposed email from Dr Dale Miquelle as I don’t trust in the source of that email, I don’t even know if is real, so I am going to leave it like that; the pictures of tigers been measured in Russia are a cacophony of methods, but that another theme of discussion. So as there is no such thing as “crystal clear” things or any other “myth” created by pseudo-scientists in other forums, I prefer to go to the source of the information and I ask to Dr Simcharoen how they measured her tigers: a) along the curves following a straight line; b) along the curves but pressing the tape in all the undulations. Her answer was option (a) so she followed the same method used for tigers in Nepal.

 

This picture shows that the tape is curved in the head, but we must take in count that the act is just for the picture and not a real measurement:

*This image is copyright of its original author

However, in this other one it shows the head been positioned in the same form that Dr Sunquist described, remember that he says that the head was hold before to measure the tiger:

*This image is copyright of its original author

 

So with the answer of Dr Simcharoen and the pictures available we can safely conclude that the tigers were measured like those from Nepal.

 

2. Weight:

There is a tendency to discredit tiger weights because of the method used to capture them. In the paper it says that baits were used to attract tigers but at the end was unsucsefull, just like with the Amur tigers, so they decided to use snares and then the tigers were captured in the trails. However I ask to Dr Simcharoen if the tigers were baited or not and she says that the tigers “were not feed before the capture”, in fact she don’t understand why I was asking that. So we can be sure that tigers were not baited and the specimens were captured in the road with snares, case close.

 

Comparison:

Taking in count all the tigers recorded by scientist we have a small sample from only three populations: India/Nepal, Russia and Thailand. From Sumatra there is only a couple of weights and the measurements of one tigress. A report from Malayan tigers shows a few measurements of tigers, but probably they were taking “pressing the tape”, this judging by the estimated weights, but in the past these sizes were real and taken “between pegs” (remember that the largest skull from “Indochina” recorded by Mazák was, apparently, from Malaysia).

It is interesting that the weights from the Thailand tigers and those from the Russian Far East are about the same, which is very interesting as there is a larger difference in the body length. This is probably because of the method used as Dr Simcharoen measured her tigers straight while the pictures of Amur tigers shows that the tape is curve, not pressing, jut curved (a picture with the President Putin shows a tiger been measured in straight line, but that is from the Amur Tiger Programme, not the Siberian Tiger Project). If we adjust the sizes from the Amur tiger by at least 10 cm like @peter suggested, the sizes will be about the same, which will explain the similarities in the weights.

 

So with a rough calculation, I can make the following comparative table, but please take in count that this is just a preliminary table, it still need the references and a few other details, but it summarize all the records from tigers recorded by scientists:

*This image is copyright of its original author

 

Of course the next step will be to make a comparison between the scientific and the hunting records from Indochina, although I only found 3 weights from male tigers in the region (173 – 182 – 259 kg), and the last one is an exceptional one.

 

I hope this helps for those that like to keep records of sizes and weights.

 

Greetings to all.  Reply